Organic and Built Landscapes

Research

Organic
and Built Landscapes weaves
together the streets of London suburbs, council flats, Bronze Age stones and
the weeds of allotments. Several of our research projects investigate
sustainability of urban lives, success and failure in development of new urban
communities and the vital co-presence of contemporary architecture and
archeology of Neolithic monuments, the phenomenology of city outdoors and the
countryside, and the feeling and meaning of asphalt, soil and plants for
British parcours, townies, and
gardeners. The cluster is defined by the Adaptable Suburbs project that runs jointly with the Bartlett
School of Architecture and Geomatic Engineering. Adaptable Suburbs project
examines the micro environments and historical transformations of the suburban
high street to determine what makes London suburbs significant and enduring.
Suburbs are defined as spaces of habitation where economies of movement such as
walking intersect with memory, discourse, and materialities. The focus is on
the ethnographic study of streetscrapes and consumer environments as they link
to the wider experience of the suburb and on the notions of sustainability that
is afforded by redesigning London houses and creating green roofs and solar
panels to reduce carbon emissions.

Buchli, V and Lucas, G (2000) The
Archaeology of Alienation: A Late 20th. Century British Council Flat. In:
Buchli, V and Lucas, G, (eds.) Archaeologies of the Contemporary Past. (158 -
167). Routledge: London.